Disney’s reimagining of Madeleine L’Engle’s faith-inflected sci‑fi fantasy classic wants to inspire young viewers, but it’s afraid to ask anything of them — and even more afraid of the book’s religious themes.

Ava DuVernay’s adaptation of L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time is not religious in the same way as the beloved, faith-inflected sci-fi fantasy novel about three children — 13-year-old Meg Murray, her 5-year-old brother Charles Wallace and their 14-year-old friend Calvin — embarking on an interstellar quest for the Murrays’ long-absent father with the aid of three mysterious celestial beings.

Still, the movie has a religious dimension of a sort. Like Disney’s last PG-rated sci-fi fantasy, Brad Bird’s Tomorrowland, A Wrinkle in Time can be seen as a kind of secular faith-based film, no less insistent and heavy-handed about its gospel of inclusion, respect and self-esteem than, say, last year’s The Shack with its own gospel of therapeutic faith. Whatever you think of the message, such ham-fisted art undermines it.

Here is a sentence I did not expect to write: The film’s portrayal of the otherworldly Mrs. Ws — Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who and Mrs. Which — makes the depiction of the Holy Trinity in The Shack profound and numinous by comparison.

The Shack had Octavia Spencer as God the Father (or Papa); A Wrinkle in Time has Oprah Winfrey as the formidable Mrs. Which. Mrs. Whatsit and Mrs. Who are played by Reese Witherspoon and Mindy Kaling, respectively.

Apparently if there’s a trio of unearthly, ageless personages assuming human form in order to guide members of our species on a journey of discovery, they will probably be played by a diverse trio of actors with an African-American woman presiding in some way. (A kind of Della Reese Principle?)

I can roll with that, and if I can roll with a movie imagining God choosing to appear to someone looking like Spencer (and I kind of can), I’m certainly willing to accept Oprah as — well, whatever kind of higher being this Mrs. Which is supposed to be. (The book explicitly identifies the Mrs. Ws as angels, but the movie never says what they are.)

The problem isn’t exactly Oprah, Witherspoon or Kaling, though it isn’t exactly not them, either. The problem is that, for all the colorfully extravagant costume design and glittery makeup, their characters are at best whimsical but not really odd or and never mysterious or compelling. They barely rise to the level of kooky shtick, and engender no sense of higher wisdom or even emotional connection.

I had problems with The Shack, but at least when Spencer told Sam Worthington that he had no idea how much she loved him, I accepted that coming from her.

Not only does Witherspoon’s Mrs. Whatsit never tell Meg (Storm Reid) that she loves her (a line that in the book turns out to have crucial plot significance), I wouldn’t believe her if she did, since nothing we see of her manifests the slightest comprehension either of love or of Meg.

I loved DuVernay’s Selma, and I care about diversity and representation in cinema. L’Engle’s book has been important to me since childhood, not least because of the religious themes, though I’ve never been a purist for adaptations. A daringly reimagined adaptation can honor the original far more than a dully literal version.

This version shifts L’Engle’s story, with its rural mid-20th century setting and white characters, to a diverse, contemporary L.A.-area setting (early scenes were shot in a middle-class Compton neighborhood). Meg is now the only child of an interracial couple (Chris Pine and Gugu Mbatha-Raw) and her almost mystically gifted younger brother Charles Wallace (Deric McCabe, of Filipino descent) is now adopted.

On occasion it seems the story hasn’t been rethought enough. In the book, when Calvin (Levi Miller) shows up near the Murrays’ remote house at night, Charles Wallace demands to know why he’s there. When the same line is uttered on an urban sidewalk in broad daylight, it makes no sense in that quotidian setting. Why shouldn’t Calvin be there?

The whole movie suffers from that loss of atmosphere. It’s not just that the atmosphere is different; there’s just so little atmosphere of any kind.

“Wild nights are my glory,” says Mrs. Whatsit in a line straight from the book, but it’s only raining; the book’s howling winds and perilous storm don’t make it to Compton.

Some things about the book are relatively unfilmable. The climactic manifestation of evil, for instance, works on the printed page, but it would probably look ridiculous and anticlimactic onscreen.

Yet a fateful scene in which Charles falls under a malign influence that Meg and Calvin barely escape is creepy and dreadful in ways that could translate powerfully to film. Here it’s staged on a crowded beach, and it’s over before you know it.

There is exactly one exception: one of the book’s most unsettling effects, as the children arrive on the dark planet of Camazotz, they encounter an eerie suburban neighborhood in which children bounce balls in perfect union and rhythm, and respond to their mother’s calls to dinner at exactly the same time.

This one faithfully reproduced sequence has not been rethought or updated; the neighborhood and the mothers’ wide-skirted house dresses would be at home in a literal period adaptation.

Yet even here something important is missing: the maternal anxiety of the woman whose boy is dangerously, unrhythmically out of step. One of L’Engle’s themes is how society punishes misfits and oddballs, especially those with misunderstood gifts who haven’t yet learned to be comfortable in their own skins.

L’Engle’s Meg is an awkward misfit: angry, resentful and self-pitying; gifted, though not on her younger brother’s level. (Mr. and Mrs. Murray, both brilliant scientists, are also oddballs; only the twins Sandy and Dennys, dropped in the film, are normal.)

Yet the filmmakers, burdened by the cultural import of a $100-million sci-fi fantasy starring an African-American girl, can’t bear for Meg to have real faults or to be anything less than a positive model for girls and children of color.

So, instead of being a misfit, Meg is bullied by a clique of mean girls who leave her a note on the anniversary of her father’s disappearance suggesting that she should disappear too. Meg lashes out violently at one of them, but she’s only standing up for her little brother. It’s theoretically bad behavior, but the audience expects it — and it seems to impress Calvin.

The principal, a wholly sympathetic authority figure with nothing of the book’s prickly Mr. Jenkins but the name, tells Meg that she shuts people out and then wonders why they don’t like her, but we don’t see this behavior.

Meg is constantly affirmed and reassured; except for Mrs. Whatsit, everyone keeps telling how talented and capable she is, if she would only accept it. Yet the film sells short Meg’s gifts by fearing the story’s intellectual underpinnings, where Meg’s gifts shine.

One of the book’s most memorable bits — a scene that expanded my mind when I read it as a boy, and still shapes my thinking today — involves an explanation of space-time and the idea of a tesseract: a folding (or wrinkling) of space-time via a fifth dimension to travel instantly between vastly distant locations. (“The shortest distance between two points is not a straight line.”)

A version of this scene was shot for the film, with Meg herself presenting the principle in class (complete with a plastic model of an ant taking the place of the imaginary ant in the book’s in-text illustrations). A scene like this could have showcased the side of Meg the filmmakers want viewers to see: brainy and academically capable.

Alas, it seems this was too cerebral or something, and was cut. Now the idea of a tesseract is given a rushed explanation in a scene with Mr. and Mrs. Murray, and the key visual is only glimpsed in a computer animation in the background. How can filmmakers inspire young viewers if they’re afraid to ask anything of them?

The finished film tries to highlight Meg’s gifts in a ridiculous invented action scene evocative of a young-adult apocalyptic survival movie. “It’s a physics thing,” she says modestly, but the stunt they’ve just tried is the sort of thing that only works in video games and movies that are too much like video games.

The need to present an affirmative image extends to Meg’s parents. I appreciate the warmly rendered early scenes with the Murrays all together before Mr. Murray’s disappearance. Yet for all her father’s apologies to Meg for having left her and the family, the film doesn’t dare to touch on Meg’s deep disappointment on being reunited with her father and discovering that he isn’t the all-powerful figure capable of setting all to rights that she’d built him up to be in her mind.

Kaling’s Mrs. Who still speaks in quotations, although her frequent biblical references have all been excised, and there are fewer classical and historical references and more Outkast and Lin-Manuel Miranda. She doesn’t come across as someone who has trouble verbalizing; she just says quotes for no reason.

The dropping of the Biblical references is not incidental. When Mrs. Who quotes 1 John — “The light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not” — that has thematic significance: The darkness, the Dark Thing, is strong, but light is stronger; this is not a dualistic, Manichaean story.

The movie’s tagline — “The only thing faster than light is the darkness” — seems to reverse this: Darkness has a natural advantage. The line doesn’t appear in the book, and I doubt L’Engle would approve. (That the movie conflates the darkness — the Dark Thing — with It, which is merely a local manifestation of darkness on Camazotz, is just one more disconnect.) Compared to this, Disney’s Narnia films retained far more of the Christian milieu of Lewis’ stories.

The aversion to religion is nowhere more evident than in the rousing enumeration of the Earth’s great fighters against the darkness. In the book, Jesus is given the first place, though there are others: artists and scientists (Leonardo, Shakespeare, Bach, Curie, Einstein) as well as Christian and non-Christian religious figures (Buddha and St. Francis as well as Gandhi).

The movie relegates all this to an afterthought, adding some racial diversity to the list (Nelson Mandela, Maya Angelou) and dropping all the religious figures, definitely including Jesus.

“Tomorrow there’ll be more of us,” smiles Mrs. Who benignly, quoting Hamilton. Tomorrow-land, according to Disney, may be a utopia with all kinds of diversity, but it seems there’s only room for one gospel.

This has to be the worst movie I’ve ever seen. I read the book as a class novel and I loved all of the religion, the classic story line between good and evil, and the theme of the book (which is love).After we finished the book, the whole class went to go see the movie; and were we excited! I watched the movie thinking it started promising since movies are never exact. Then as we went deeper in the movie it was very rushed and the whole plot line, along with the theme, religion, the tension between Meg and Calvin, the way Meg changes, Aunt Beast, and at least 3 full chapters were thrown out the window. I do not recommend seeing this movie.

Posted by Andrew on Sunday, Mar, 18, 2018 2:18 PM (EDT):

I still have not seen A Wrinkle in Time (and I probably won’t). I did reread the book. After reading it again, and the second book of this series, and part of the third (her story plots are extremely repetitious), I am beginning to think that maybe it is better that Disney took religion out of the film, at least the religion that Madeleine L’Engle implies in the book, namely, that although Jesus is important, all religions are fairly equal. You can look on You Tube and hear her state that no one can say that what someone else believes is wrong, and that you are right. Also, she states that her religion is subject to change without notice. In “A Wrinkle in Time” panpsychism is implied ever so slightly. The other books in this series pretty much state this as objective fact (even though these books are science fiction). Which is better, then, making the movie the way Disney did or making the movie with the religion of Madeleine L’Engle?

Posted by mary on Friday, Mar, 16, 2018 11:43 AM (EDT):

BTW, if you’re interested, I finally got around to putting down my own thoughts on the film. Briefly, I liked it better than you did, but thought it missed the mark and weakened the characters. Here’s the link:

I’m not going to tell you you “should” “support” Disney or any other company, or that you “should” see any movie in the world.

On the other hand, when Disney puts out positive entertainment with good moral themes, in some cases from filmmakers who are openly Christian, such as Pete Docter (Inside Out) or Andrew Stanton (Finding Dory), I’m not going to tell others that they and their families “shouldn’t” enjoy uplifting quality family entertainment either.

You can certainly boycott Disney if that’s what you want to do, but Catholic moral theology will not support the claim of a universal obligation to boycott Disney.

On some level I think we get the culture we deserve. If bad entertainment is rewarded and good entertainment isn’t, guess which we’ll get more of?

Posted by Robin on Thursday, Mar, 15, 2018 1:52 AM (EDT):

J.M.J.
Steven,
Could you please explain to me and others I know why ANY CATHOLIC should support Disney in anyway shape or form? It promotes publically, financially and subliminally so many things that are an abomination in God’s eyes and should also be to Christians. And as always whenever I read a review on their movies 9 out 0f 10 times it tells of someway they have undermined Christ, His teachings, the Catholic faith, her morals and values! I cannot help but think of the following bible passages…Col. 3:1-2 -Therefore, if you be risen with Christ, seek the things that are above; where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God: 2 Mind the things that are above, not the things that are upon the earth.And 2 Timothy 4:3-4 “For there will be a time when they will not obey sound teaching, but they will multiply teachers to themselves, according to their desires, and with an itching of their sense of hearing and they will turn their ears from the truth and turn aside unto fables.” And Rev.3:16 - “And you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I am going to vomit you from my mouth.”
Personally at the cost of offending my God and Father as well as losing our souls my family has done without Disney for many years and have flourished spiritually! PRAISED BE GOD! Please know you and your family are in our family prayer book Steven.

I’ve always been puzzled why the book was so frequently the target of public bans (especially after I read it). I always figured that it was the line about Jesus, Buddha, and Gandhi, and the implication of religious relativism. It does not surprise me that the movie modifies this list, although I am wondering: Would it have been more objectionable if they kept the religious figures and added Muhammad?

Since the original books (or just the first?) were so important to Mr. Greydanus, I would love to see some reflections on the Christian themes, especially in comparison with other popular fantasy series. If he has the time and the energy, of course!

Posted by mary on Monday, Mar, 12, 2018 2:35 PM (EDT):

Interesting review! Still struggling with my reactions to this film; I loved some things in it (including the kids, and, to my surprise, the Happy Medium), but really disliked others. I do agree that removing all references to Christianity weakens the movie. I was also deeply disappointed in the loss of Aunt Beast. As I said on Twitter to one of L’Engle’s granddaughters, there was nothing in the movie as uplifting or thrilling as Meg’s long, brave walk to IT in the book. The fact that she made a conscious, disciplined decision to go back alone was so important! The movie privileged emotion over integrity, which is what I see in Meg’s walk.

I’d call the movie a beautiful mess, and part of the reason is that Meg’s character development was curtailed. And I so agree about the man with the red eyes! The actor was good, but this scene, like the climactic scene with IT, needed more time. Interestingly, behind us in the theater were three older women who’d never read the book. One was an educator for the deaf. They said they felt the movie was oddly paced and should have spent more time on certain things, such as the theme of communication. They were so right! That theme is strongly present in the book, and was almost nonexistent in the movie.

But I have to say I loved the way IT was visualized. That was very smart. I also liked Meg showing the other children how to ride a slipstream on Uriel, and I loved the image of enfolding and how it was used. And, as I said, the kids were great. But the movie as a whole was softer and simpler than the book, to its loss.

I’m a Catholic humanist (liberal, of course), btw. Humanism is not a dirty word, and we who call ourselves Christian shouldn’t let it be taken from us.

Your review only confirmed my suspicions when I saw the trailer. First, it is made by Disney. Second, it has Oprah Winfrey. Third, the tag line at the end of the trailer states all in caps, “THE ONLY WAY TO DEFEAT DARKNESS IS TO BECOME THE LIGHT.” I knew then and there with that line, you could say goodbye to religion in this film, and everything is going to humanism.

Posted by Elisa on Sunday, Mar, 11, 2018 3:38 PM (EDT):

I borrowed “A Wrinkle in Time” from the library as a kid and thought it was interesting.

Of interest, Disney adapted “A Wrinkle in Time” as a TV movie in 2003. Later ABC broadcasted it in 2 parts.

Posted by Anonymous on Saturday, Mar, 10, 2018 4:56 PM (EDT):

It is very good that there are voices which can question. Thank you for doing this. The erasing of Christ while stealing His gifts sadly is nothing new. Unfortunately it is the path the deceiver likes best. My guess is Madeleine L’Engle would not be pleased. Their art was the vehicle to give their faith which is their most precious gift. It’s like giving a beautifully wrapped gift only to find the box is empty. Someone quoted the biblical words the dark comprehend it not, if we take Our Savior out of the saving we lose the gift.

1. Madeleine L’Engle was Anglican, not Catholic. (So was I when I met her, decades ago.)

2. As I mentioned in my review, the book was important to me as a boy. Last year I reread it out loud to two of my three younger kids. I find that it holds up. It’s not without flaws, but it’s not in the least “preachy,” and while it has a strong moral outlook, but I wouldn’t call it “moralizing” either.

3. I can’t say I share your cynicism about the Newbery Award in general. Newbery Award and Newbery Honor books our family has enjoyed include Savvy, Holes, The Giver, Bridge to Terabithia, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIHM, The High King, The Cricket in Times Square and My Side of the Mountain. None of those are what I would call preachy or moralizing.

Thanks for your kind words. Many years ago I started noodling an all-time top 10 list, which grew into an all-time top 25, although I still have a few slots to fill. I’ve been slowly reviewing these films, but perhaps I should just publish the list whether I have reviews or not. I’ll give it some thought.

Posted by Lydia on Saturday, Mar, 10, 2018 2:03 PM (EDT):

Thank you for the review. I read the book earlier this year and have been curious as to how it would be translated to the screen.

[Spoiler warning, just in case]

It sounds like the story has been turned into another generic CGI action fest (I knew I didn’t recognize that “Do you trust me?!” scene from the trailer) with only the vaguest of spiritual or philosophical themes, which is disappointing but not surprising. Some of these changes make sense (the twins are no great loss, storywise), but others are downright confusing. Mrs. Whatsit never tells Meg she loves her?! Does Meg figure out to defeat IT with love by herself, because the writers wanted to make her more empowered (I read that’s why they cut Aunt Beast)? And on that note, I’d think if they wanted to highlight the importance of believing in yourself, they’d focus more on Meg’s disappointment with her father, not remove it. Or did they not want to show her depending on him at any point at all, because she needs to be a Strong Female Role Model? I’m all for positive representation, and I expected they would soften Meg’s flaws somewhat, but it sounds like they left no room for her to have any character development.

Posted by Carol on Saturday, Mar, 10, 2018 1:59 PM (EDT):

“The whole movie suffers from that loss of atmosphere. It’s not just that the atmosphere is different; there’s just so little atmosphere of any kind.”

For me, this is what is wrong with almost all the contemporary films (and for that matter, novels) that I see. The atmosphere depends on the morality of the story, the “moral center”. Without it, there can’t be atmosphere, because nothing really, truly matters. Who cares?

Posted by Sparks on Saturday, Mar, 10, 2018 1:47 PM (EDT):

This sounds like the perfect Current Year movie. Absolutely nothing you said here is enticing me to see this in the slightest.

Hollywood needs to do much better.

Posted by Patricia Dilgard on Saturday, Mar, 10, 2018 1:17 PM (EDT):

Wrinkle in Time won the Newberry Award, the most prestigious children’s literature award in America. Of course it is adults who decide on the literary merit of these books which almost universally tend to be preachy and moralizing. This book was intermittantly foisted on my many times by well-meaning teachers for no other reason than the author is a Catholic. I could never get through the first chapter. Anybody out there who has re-read the book recently as an adult? Does it really stand up to the test of time?

Posted by Laura J DeAlmeida on Saturday, Mar, 10, 2018 1:15 PM (EDT):

Mr. Greydanus, thank you for your review on this movie. I was very excited to learn of its remake and looked forward to movie date with my family which is only meant for just deserts. I am 47 and A Wrinkle in Time, along with many of M. L’Engles’ books had me enraptured as a young girl, even in later years I read her book “Many Waters” and love it in my heart. But I understand your review in all details and I am already so disappointed. I really was not sure that even in today’s art tech how they would assimilate the feelings that are so profound to the readers. Thanks again, for saving me my money, time & what would certainly be an uneventful endeavor.

Posted by Tom on Friday, Mar, 9, 2018 9:26 PM (EDT):

Great review as always, Steven.
This is off topic, sorry, but I was scrolling through IMDB’s Top 250 list and I realized how many classic films you have not reviewed! I’m obviously not trying to force you or anything, but I’m sure the other avid readers of your reviews would be interested in seeing even just a basic list of films that you are a big fan of, but have not written anything about. If you cannot or do not want to make one, I completely understand.
God Bless.

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